Okay,
Welcome.
Again,
My name is Aaron Thomas Braugh and thank you for stopping by for this,
I guess we could call it a authenticity meditation.
I think we're gonna start this off with some simple mindfulness.
Try to get us situated here in the moment,
And once we feel like we're nice and centered and present,
I'm going to walk you through something called the tripartite model of authenticity.
This tripartite model of authenticity was developed by Dr.
Michael Kernis and Dr.
Brian Goldman in the early 2000s,
And it's quite simple.
So I think once we're plugged in,
It'll be pretty straightforward to focus on.
So let's start by giving ourselves permission to giving ourselves permission to arrive all at once.
Let's arrive for the session today.
We'll sit up straight,
Get ourselves comfortable.
We'll maybe begin by feeling yourself in your seat,
Noticing the sensations of sitting,
Feeling your legs and your sit bones against whatever you're sitting on.
Feeling your feet on the floor.
Noticing whatever you notice in your legs and your arms.
Just getting acquainted with the sensations in your body.
Perhaps noticing whatever sensations are in your hands right now.
Your hands and your arms.
Feeling what it feels like to have your left arm and your right arm on the floor.
And shifting the focus to the rising and the falling of your chest.
Letting your breath become deeper.
Your inhale a bit longer.
And you're just witnessing the organic,
Natural,
Unforced rising and falling of your chest as you breathe.
You might notice as you continue to breathe,
Perhaps your inhale continues to get a little more full each time.
We're not forcing the inhale to be full.
We're just sort of noticing.
The possibility of the inhale getting nice and comfortably full.
And then it's nice and comfortably full.
We're just going to let it fall out of us.
Being with the inhale and the exhale.
The rising and the falling of your chest at your own pace.
Okay.
Now that we're here,
Really here,
Bring our attention to the thoughts,
The ambience in our head.
That is to say,
Bringing attention to the thoughts,
The ambience in our head.
That is to say,
Bringing attention to the quality of our mind right now.
We're going to shift our focus now to contemplating the three core components of this tripartite three-factor model of authenticity.
We're just going to reflect on these three components as we continue to breathe,
Continue to listen to sounds,
Continue to feel our body in the seat.
It's sort of a guided reflection.
As I move through each of these three core components,
We might focus on ways in which we could get 10 or 20% closer to an integration of each component.
Each component,
A little more authentic in our daily life.
The first component is that of self-alienation.
How this shows up in our life is,
This is the degree to which we feel connected to our true self.
Whether or not we're in touch with our genuine values,
Our genuine emotions,
Genuine desires.
Someone with high self-alienation means they're feeling out of touch with their authentic emotions and values.
So we might reflect on where in my life do I feel alienated from what I really want,
What I really believe?
Where am I not being congruent with my values and my emotions and my desires?
With my values and my emotions and my desires.
And once you locate an area in your life where you're maybe not being congruent with yourself,
Let's think about imagining what might I do to turn that boat around a little bit.
What could I do to be 10% more congruent?
More in line with my desires and values.
Is there a conversation that I need to have with somebody?
Is there a letter I need to write?
What could I do to square up a bit more?
And this takes us into a very similar core component,
Which is that of authentic living.
Sort of focuses on behaving in a way that aligns with our true self and values.
So when I'm actually out in the world in my behavior,
What could I do to be 10% or 20% more aligned with my personal beliefs and preferences rather than conforming to some pressure coming from somewhere else?
Where am I being false?
Where am I divorced from myself?
And how can I move the needle a couple degrees in the right direction?
I'm just breathing into that possibility,
Sensing the possibility of course correcting here just 10%,
20%.
Really breathing into that possibility.
I wanna be clear that this is not an act of self-criticism.
This is simply a practice of reflecting on how we can be closer to ourselves,
Be more aligned with the man or the woman that we really wanna be.
So I acknowledge it might be slightly uncomfortable or embarrassing to acknowledge some,
I don't know,
Some shortcomings here.
But we're not doing this with a sense of judgment or criticism.
We're doing this because we care about ourselves.
And lastly,
The third component of this theory of authenticity involves the acceptance of external influence.
So this involves the extent to which a person allows external opinions or expectations and pressures to dictate their thoughts,
Their actions.
So surveying our life,
Our relationships,
And seeing where do I notice an undue influence from other people's opinions or expectations of me?
Where is that influence leading me to not being as congruent as I'd like to be with myself?
How can I be more aligned with myself and less aligned with external pressures from other people?
Where is that showing up in my life?
External pressures from other people.
Where is that showing up for me?
Once you locate that,
Again,
Just imagining and visualizing,
Breathing into the possibility of,
Again,
Moving the needle 10% or 20% towards being less blown around by the winds of external influence.
What would that look like for you in your life?
We can end by placing our hands on our chest or our belly as a sign that we're here for ourselves.
We want to be more aligned with ourselves.
In fact,
The very act of showing up here for a meditation like this suggests that you do care about yourself.
Breathing into that for a moment.
Okay,
Well,
I hope that helped you get centered for your day.
I'll see you here next time.
